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Actively exploited in the wild. This CVE is on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list — treat remediation as urgent. Federal remediation due by 25 May 2022.
OpenSSLFramework / library

CVE-2014-0160

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2014-04-07
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.0.1g or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
In the wild High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The (1) TLS and (2) DTLS implementations in OpenSSL 1.0.1 before 1.0.1g do not properly handle Heartbeat Extension packets, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information from process memory via crafted packets that trigger a buffer over-read, as demonstrated by reading private keys, related to d1_both.c and t1_lib.c, aka the Heartbleed bug.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

The Heartbleed vulnerability is a buffer over-read in OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS Heartbeat Extension. Attackers send specially crafted heartbeat requests with malformed length fields that cause the server to read beyond the boundaries of the allocated buffer, returning up to 64KB of process memory content. This leaked memory can contain sensitive data including private SSL/TLS keys, session tokens, and user credentials.

MitigationUpdate OpenSSL to version 1.0.1g or later which contains the bounds-check fix. After patching, regenerate all SSL certificates and keys as they may have been compromised, and consider rotating all user credentials and session tokens as a precaution.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
OpenSSLFramework / library
Affected:>= 1.0.1, < 1.0.1g
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 12.04= 12.10= 13.10
FedoraOperating system
Affected:= 19= 20
Gluster StorageApplication
Affected:= 2.1
StorageApplication
Affected:= 2.1
VirtualizationApplication
Affected:= 6.0
Enterprise Linux DesktopOperating system
Affected:= 6.0
Enterprise Linux ServerOperating system
Affected:= 6.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the installed OpenSSL version
    Run 'openssl version' or 'openssl version -a' on the system. For programmatic checks, parse the output of 'openssl version -a' to extract the full version string including release date.
    Affected if The version shows 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f (any version >= 1.0.1 and < 1.0.1g)
  2. Check if the TLS Heartbeat extension is enabled in OpenSSL
    Run 'openssl s_client -connect localhost:443 -tlsextdebug 2>&1 | grep -i heartbeat' or inspect the OpenSSL configuration file (typically /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf or /etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf) for 'heartbeat' extension settings.
    Affected if The Heartbeat extension is present and enabled in the OpenSSL build, which is the default for vulnerable versions
  3. Test external services for Heartbleed vulnerability
    Use a Heartbleed testing tool such as 'nmap -p 443 --script ssl-heartbleed <target>' or the OpenSSL s_client test: 'echo "" | openssl s_client -connect <host>:443 -tlsextdebug 2>&1 | grep "heartbeat"'
    Affected if The target service responds to heartbeat requests and returns memory content beyond the expected buffer, or the tlsextdebug shows heartbeat extension is active without proper bounds checking
  4. Verify the distribution-specific OpenSSL package version
    On Debian/Ubuntu: 'dpkg -l | grep openssl'. On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora: 'rpm -qa | grep openssl'. On Fedora: 'rpm -qa openssl'. Compare the installed package version against the vulnerable version ranges.
    Affected if The installed package version matches the vulnerable OpenSSL versions (1.0.1 through 1.0.1f) for the specific distribution listed in the CVE
  5. Identify services using vulnerable OpenSSL versions
    Run 'lsof +c 0 | grep -E "ssl|tls|http|https|apache|nginx|postfix|dovecot"' or check running processes that link against libssl. Use 'ldd <executable>' on suspect binaries to confirm they link to the vulnerable OpenSSL library version.
    Affected if Any SSL/TLS-enabled service is running with the vulnerable OpenSSL library loaded into memory

The system is affected if it runs any version of OpenSSL from 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f (or the corresponding vendor-packaged versions for Ubuntu 12.04/12.10/13.10, Fedora 19/20, or RHEL 6.0) with the Heartbeat extension enabled, and has exposed TLS services that could leak memory contents.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.0.1g or later
Fixed in 1.0.1g
Vendor patch www.oracle.com →
Interim mitigation

Update OpenSSL to version 1.0.1g or later which contains the bounds-check fix. After patching, regenerate all SSL certificates and keys as they may have been compromised, and consider rotating all user credentials and session tokens as a precaution.

Recommended fix High confidence

OpenSSL 1.0.1g or later (or patched versions provided by distribution vendors)

  1. Check the current OpenSSL version using: openssl version -a
  2. If the version is >= 1.0.1 and < 1.0.1g, the system is vulnerable
  3. Upgrade OpenSSL to version 1.0.1g or later using the system's package manager (e.g., apt-get update && apt-get upgrade for Ubuntu, yum update for RHEL/Fedora)
  4. After upgrading, verify the new version with: openssl version -a
  5. Restart all services that use OpenSSL to load the patched library (e.g., apache, nginx, postfix, dovecot)
  6. Since Heartbleed can expose private keys, regenerate SSL/TLS certificates and keys after patching
  7. Revoke old certificates and issue new ones from your Certificate Authority
Caveat Patched OpenSSL is backward compatible with existing certificates and keys, but due to the vulnerability exposure, keys should be regenerated as a precaution

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in OpenSSL Exploited in the wild — priority engagement
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2014-0160 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data